Mrs. Mary Walker, 93, Summoned By Death

Mrs. Mary Wells Walker, 93, of 385 Lawson Ave., widow of C. Foster Walker, died of complications at 9:30 a.m. today in Ohio Valley Hospital. She first entered the hospital last Dec. 30 but was returned home Jan 2. She was returned to the hospital, Friday, Jan. 19, and had been a patient since then.

Since last August, when she had greeted friends on the occassion of her 93rd birthday anniversary, Mrs. Walker had been subject to increasing weakness due to her advanced age, but until last December she attended services at Westminster Church regularly. She had been a member of Westminster Church for 77 years.

NATIVE OF BROOKE COUNTY

Mrs. Walker was the daughter of Lewis and Rose Wells. She was born Aug. 18, 1868, in Brooke COunty, W. Va., in the Wells home on the riverfront directly opposite Steubenville. The family moved to Steubenville in 1885.

After the erection of the Market Street bridge, residence properties between the railroad and the river were sold to the railroad and the old dwellings were razed. It was in these homes that four generations of the Wells family had lived, and in one of them the five children of Lewis and Rose Wells were born. Mrs. Walker was the eldest daughter, the third child.

Until she entered the former South Street High School in 1885, she had been a student at the old No. 8 one-room school (Brooke County District). The building was located opposite the papermill which was opposite Ross Street. During the past year, the only other surviving member of her 1887 graduating class died.

CEMETERY ASSOCIATION DIRECTOR

After her graduation, Mrs. Walker was employed at various times as a bookkeeper, schoolteacher in Alikanna and Mingo Junction, and in secretarial work, Concluding her clerical career as secretary of the Union Cemetery Association of which, for several years before his death, her husband, C. Foster Walker, had served as superintendent.

After Mr. Walker's death, she continued both as secretary and superintendent.

She and Mr. Walker were married in 1914. He was a direct descendant of the pioneer Walker who with James Ross and Bezaleel Wells had been the original owners of the acreage on which Steubenville was incorporated. Mrs. Walker had been a member of Westminster Presbyterian Church for 77 years. In 1884, she joined the old Second Presbyterian Church which was located where the Fort Steuben Hotel now stands. The First and Second Presbyterian churches mergered in 1910 and erected Westminster Church on the site of the old First Church.

FAITHFUL CHURCH ATTENDANT

Until recently, Mrs. Walker rarely missed a Sunday service. She was the oldest church member in years of age and in years of active membership. Her interest included the missionary and other women's church activities. She also took pride in her membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Besides her parents and husbdan, Mrs. Walker was preceded in death by her two older brothers. William Edwin Wells, more familiarly known and called "W. E." was a foremost pottery manufacturer, having built and operated until his death the Homer Laughlin China Co. plant at Newell. He was succeeded in management by his sons, Joe M. Wells and Arthur A. Wells.

Her second brother, Ross Wells, died at the age of 30. He had made a name for himself in the field of steampower equipment since replaced by electric control. He engineered and installed steam power in the old Carnegie Steel plant at Mingo Junction; also at Ensley and Birmingham, Ala. and at Boulder, Colo., and for the Tennessee Coal and Iron Corp. and for Westinghouse in 1893 at its airbrakes plant at Wall Station, east of Pittsburgh.

F. Herbert (Bert) Wells, owner of Wells Farm, Eldersville Road, with children, Lewis of London; Helen, wife of Dr. John C. Hamilton and Edith, wife of Herbert Edson of Miami Beach, Fla., and her sister, Mrs. Nell Wells Alexander of Atlanta, Ga., are the surviving members of the family.

Mrs. Alexander and son, Wells, and her daughter, Dorothy, wife of Russell Magee, are here from Atlanta for the funeral.

Funeral services will be at 2:30 p.m. Monday at the McClave Funeral Home Chapel with Dr. Charles W. Fulton, pastor of Westminster Church, officiating. Burial will be in Union Cemetery.

Friends may call at the funeral home Saturday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. and from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
*****The Steubenville Herald Star, Friday, January 26, 1962*****